New Delhi
14 November 2007
Twenty three persons, including scientists and former military
chiefs, have written an open letter to the members of Parliament asking them to support
the India-United States nuclear deal.
"Nobody can claim the deal in perfect, or gives us everything we would have liked. But
all international agreements require movement away from one's first preferences," the
letter read.
The two-page letter has former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr MR Srinivasan,
former Indian Space Research Organisation chairman Dr K Kasturirangan, former Air
chiefs Arjun Singh and OP Mehra, former Army chiefs VN Sharma and VP Malik, former
Naval chiefs Ram Tahliani and Madhvendra Singh, former Cabinet Secretaries BG
Deshmukh and Naresh Chandra, former foreign secretaries KS Bajpai, K Raghunath and
Lalit Mansingh among its signatories.
Among the other signatories are Roddam Narsimha, former director of the National
Institute of Advanced Studies, Abid Hussain, former Planning Commission member and
former defence secretary NN Vohra. Former foreign secretary MK Rasgotra and
seasoned diplomats Satinder K Lambah and Arundhati Ghose are also signatories to the
appeal.
They insisted that India cannot get Russian reactors without taking the next steps for
operationalising the India-United States nuclear deal. They said that the deal would help
remove crippling constraints on the country's atomic programme and they also
contended that the nuclear pact was an instrument to make India a stronger power.
They argued that the deal did not negate India's sovereign right to carry out nuclear tests
or curb its freedom to produce weapons.
Dismissing apprehensions that the agreement made the country subservient to the US,
the letter said that "we believe India is more vulnerable to foreign pressures without this
agreement than we would be by increasing our strength through an intelligent use of it to
put through various development programmes which currently falter".
"The agreement has given us as much as it has because of a most particular
combination of circumstances which hardly can come again," they cautioned.
They pointed out that existing constraints can only be removed through an agreement
with those who impose them. This accord makes that possible, they said.
On concerns raised by Left parties that the deal binds India not to test and puts caps on
nuclear arsenal, they argued that even under the Non-Proliferation Treaty from which
India is exempted, a state can opt out and conduct a test if it feels that is vital to its
security-provided it is prepared to face the consequences.
"Nothing in the Indo-US agreement prevents us from doing likewise," the letter said,
stressing that "the fear that the agreement negates our sovereign right to test is to
overlook our sovereign right to abrogate". The international community has for long
sought to stop India's testing by threatening penalties. "We faced those when we thought
necessary, we can do so again .... The point of relevance is that if we ever decide to end
our unilateral moratorium on testing, the international reactions can be no worse if we
complete this deal than if we forego it," they added.
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